


But Sweet Will Be the Flower

by ariadnes_string



Category: Amazing Grace (2006)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 03:03:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadnes_string/pseuds/ariadnes_string
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I have become a fisher of men,” Billy intoned.  The blue of his eyes was so much lighter than the sky’s they seemed transparent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But Sweet Will Be the Flower

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dogpoet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogpoet/gifts).



“Ha,” Billy said, a note of triumph in his voice. “I’ve caught you now.”

Wilber stirred vaguely, most of his attention on the cirrus clouds overhead. They formed a twisting path across the sky, and he had the strange notion that if he followed it to the end he’d find the answer to a question he had yet to form.

Now, though, he was once again aware of the prickle of grass under him and—a new thing, this—something tickling against his wrist. He craned his head to the left, where Billy lay belly down, propped on his elbows. Idle, Wilber had supposed.

“I have become a fisher of men,” Billy intoned. The blue of his eyes was so much lighter than the sky’s they seemed transparent. The corners of his mouth tilted up.

“Don’t blaspheme,” Wiber told him mildly, turning back to his clouds. He tried to wriggle his wrist out of whatever Billy had wrapped around it, but it would not give. Billy fairly crowed with pleasure.

Wilber crooked his head around so that he could see his arm. A thin strand of plaited grasses was wound around his wrist, the green stark against his politician's pallor. He shifted onto his side so he could touch the cord with his other hand. The grass was cool and taught, almost sharp, under his fingers.

“You’re as neat as a girl,” Wilber said, admiring the workmanship. “Wherever did you learn how to do that?”

“My nursemaid taught me when I was eight. She could’ve put to sea as a midshipman. Learned a few curses from her, as well.” Billy tugged experimentally at the end of the grass cord he still held. It caught at the short hairs on Wilber’s wrist, triggering a shiver of sensation. “I shall use it to tether you to earth when you lose yourself in thoughts of heaven.”

Wilber pulled against the grass thread again, more strongly this time. But still it held.

“You always did need a flapper, like the projectors of Laputa,” Billy said. “This will stop you bumping into things when you philosophize too deeply.”

But Wilber had caught the spirit of the thing now. He angled himself so he could smile up into Billy’s face. “I feel more like Gulliver, caught in the snares of the Lilliputians,” he said, taunting.

It did the trick. “I’ll teach you to speak of Lilliputians,” cried Billy in mock outrage, grabbing for both of Wiber’s wrists and covering Wilber’s body with his own.

They wrestled almost in earnest for a few moments, rolling over and over on the grass. A few birds squawked out of the trees, frightened by the sudden movement.

Finally, Wilber gave Billy the victory he desired. They came to rest as they’d begun, with Billy poised above him, pinning both of Wilber’s hands to the earth. The bright sun turned Billy’s shirt into a scrim; the lines of his body were clearly visible within it—dark, narrow, taut. His face was a silhouette against the Wedgewood blue of the sky; Wilber could not read his expression.

“Is this how your slaves feel, do you think?” Billy asked, pressing his full weight into Wilber’s wrists, manacling them with his fingers. “Do you never think they’d do better to fight for themselves?”

It was too much. It had crossed some line. Wilber flung Billy off with a noise somewhere between a shout and a sob. It was easy enough; Billy’s strength had never lain in his body. But it was beyond Wilber to run away entirely. He curled in on himself instead, arms around his knees and eyes shut tight against the colours of the English day. He could hear Billy’s harsh breathing—nearby, but out of tempo with his own.

Behind Wilber’s eyelids, a litany of images unrolled: scarred flesh and iron chains; dark holds and fields of cane under a white-hot sun. He could feel the heat rising in his own body, overriding the mild air around him. The scent of sweat and fear tickled ghostly in his nostrils. _Why do people say these things happen far away_ , he wondered, _when for the mind there is no distance at all?_

Something tugged at his hand, prying his fingers from their grip on his shin. “I fear I’ve bound you too tight,” Billy said, voice rough from their exertions, but trying to recapture their lost sense of play. “You’ll let me loosen the toils?”

Wilber opened his eyes. Billy regarded him solemnly. His eyes had caught the green of the trees and grass and the colour seemed to anchor him to earth, to make him warm and peaceable again. Wilber’s palm lay open in his hands, the grass plait still wound around the wrist, and as Wilber watched, still somewhere between Jamaica and home, Billy lowered his mouth to it. An exploratory nudge with his tongue, and then his teeth severed the braid, sharp as a stoat. A final, almost imperceptible, brush of his lips across Wilbur’s pulse, and he looked up smiling.

“There you are, my dear,” he said. “Free.”

 _Ah, never that_ , thought Wilber, but he smiled, too, and stood so that he could pull Billy, too, to his feet.

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: Title from William Cowper’s hymn, “God Moves in Mysterious Ways.” Cowper was a friend and contemporary of John Newton's (and, coincidentally, Jane Austen's favorite poet). The full quotation is “The bud may have a bitter taste/ but sweet will be the flower.”  
> a/n: also, in an oblique way, for the "held down" square on my kink_bingo card.


End file.
